Lotus: Dead weight lifted or dead man walking?

On the face of it, life seems to be looking up for Lotus after the sacking of boss Dany Bahar at the beginning of June.

Evora hybrid seems promising

The list of recent positives is long, starting with an excellent showing at Goodwood. Lotus was the featured marque and put in a mighty effort to impress the punters. The sculpture was lauded as one of the best in recent memory and the display of golden oldie race machinery up the hill impressive. The wonderfully bizarre door-stop Type 58 racer from 1968 stuck in the mind.

Then the company this week opened the doors on its flagship Regent St merchandising store in London. A £333 car coat might not be high on your shopping list, but the kit is mainly stylish and the shop well appointed. Let's not forget that Ferrari makes around a quarter of its profit from its stores.

The racing is going great guns, meanwhile. It might be mostly in name only, but when the Lotus F1 team is now regularly making the podium and currently sits third in the championship ahead of Ferrari, it's got to have a positive effect on the global perception of the company.

Racing heritage isn't translating into sales

Lotus Engineering, a mostly separate entity to Lotus Cars, is also still deep-thinking its way to solutions to benefit both Lotus and its worldwide customers, most recently reaching the track testing phase for the Evora plug-in hybrid.

This is the car that's promised to accelerate faster to 60mph than the much-praised supercharged S but record just 55g/km of CO2 (around 120mpg).

So all this must be having a terrific effect on sales, right? Er no. Up to the end of June this year, Lotus had sold just 82 cars in the UK. That's down from 218 the year before, a fall of over 200 per cent. Even Saab sold more than that, and it's been defunct since December.

So what's the problem? We put that question to Lotus, who then sent it all the way to new owners DRB-Hicom in Malaysia, who declined to comment.

...but new branded store could help coffers

Given that Lotus would usually answer this themselves, it demonstrates just how much DRB-Hicom want to take control of the day-to-day stuff. Understandable when all the publicity outlay for expensive hobbies like racing hasn't translated into sales, and in fact seems to have done the opposite.

Let's hope the Evora convertible, expected to be revealed in a month or so, can go some way to halting the decline.

Maybe this also shows that years of motoring journos saying their products are great equally doesn't translate into sales. It would seem that car customers are smarter than the people that write about them.

Maybe this also shows that years of motoring journos saying their products are great equally doesn't translate into sales. It would seem that car customers are smarter than the people that write about them.

Lotus is a mystery to me. Admittedly the decisions to headline Goodwood and the opening of a Picadilly Concept Store were taken long time ago but for a company that is allegedly in a dire financial state it resembles hara-kiri. Only journalists believe that a 3000 feet concept store in one of the most expensive UK / The World retail spaces will ever make money. This is marketing expenditure not income.

I'm a tad concerned that the impending range is merging into 1, they have roughly the same tub and comparable driving dynamics repackaged too many times (Elise/Exige/Evora, all hard top, all cabrio), that's 6 cars when demand is probably only for 2 (Hot Elise, well specced Evora). How much money could they save if they made just 2 cars and built the business model around that ? Have a 'skunkworks' (turnipworks ? - part of their engineering arm) to do customisation for wealthy clients who want 1 off special stuff, encourage owners to use the lovely new track there more often, drop dreams of selling thousands, focus on what they're good at !

Maybe this also shows that years of motoring journos saying their products are great equally doesn't translate into sales. It would seem that car customers are smarter than the people that write about them.

The big question is if they can keep the company going until they start to deliver the new models. If they are as good as they look, and half as good as the hype, it may save the company. If not, we will be down another UK motor manufacturer.

Unfortunately, unless DRB-Hicom push though with Bahar's strategy, I think lotus have no chance. Porsche have the volume sports car market sewn up with higher quality products. Ferrari and Mclaren have moved the super car game on. All lotus have is a 16 year old low volume sports car platform, and a the Evora, that no one seems to like that much.

Virtually zero sales and money coming in, a big bill to swallow to get a decent product to market, and no guarantee regaining that investment when the product is on the market. If it was me, I'd cut my losses. Sincerely hope that DRB-Hicom don't...

i just dont get it, why the sales are so low? Lotus hard followers wont like me for saying it but the Evora is over priced is my best guess? Although given the low fuel consumption and tough economic times surely the Elise should still be selling?!